By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration’s efforts to deport noncitizens who protested the war in Gaza was unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston agreed with several university associations that the policy they described as ideological deportation violates the First Amendment.

“This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court –- squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do,’” Young, a nominee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, wrote.

An email to the Homeland Security department for comment was not immediately returned.

The ruling came after a trial during which lawyers for the associations presented witnesses who testified that the Trump administration had launched a coordinated effort to target students and scholars who had criticized Israel or showed sympathy for Palestinians.

“Not since the McCarthy era have immigrants been the target of such intense repression for lawful political speech,” Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, told the court. “The policy creates a cloud of fear over university communities, and it is at war with the First Amendment.”

Lawyers for the Trump administration put up witnesses who testified there was no ideological deportation policy as the plaintiffs contended.

“There is no policy to revoke visas on the basis of protected speech,” Victoria Santora told the court. “The evidence presented at this trial will show that plaintiffs are challenging nothing more than government enforcement of immigration laws.”

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John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, testified that visa revocations were based on longstanding immigration law. Armstrong acknowledged he played a role in the visa revocation of several high-profile activists, including Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, and was shown memos endorsing their removal.

Armstrong also insisted that visa revocations were not based on protected speech and rejected accusations that there was a policy of targeting someone for their ideology.

One witness testified that the campaign targeted more than 5,000 pro-Palestinian protesters. Out of the 5,000 names reviewed, investigators wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law, Peter Hatch of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations Unit testified. Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.

Among the report subjects was Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s clampdown on the protests.

Another was the Tufts University student Ozturk, who was released in May from six weeks in detention after being arrested on a suburban Boston street. She said she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her school’s response to the war in Gaza.

In the wake of the Evergreen High School shooting, extremism experts are raising the alarm about how teenagers are being radicalized online in spaces that glorify violence.

They, along with mental health experts, recommend parents monitor their kids’ online activity as well as learn the language that is often used in such spaces so that they know what children are being exposed to.

“What we see online happening with our children is desensitization of killing, of death, of what it means to take a life,” said Susan Payne, a national school safety expert and founder of Colorado’s Safe2Tell reporting system. “…We have to understand warning signs and indicators really are changing as we go more into a digital age.”

Here are five steps that experts said parents can take to help keep their kids safe:

Don’t rush to give a child a social media account

Mental health experts do not recommend that children have sole access to social media until they become adolescents because their brain development isn’t ready to navigate such content without the supervision of an adult.

There isn’t a set age that mental health experts recommend a child be given their own account, as each individual will be ready at a different time, said Jessica Hawks, a child and adolescent psychologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

Monitor and limit a child’s social media activity

Parents should monitor their child’s social media activity once they are given their own accounts. This includes being able to log in and see who their kids are talking to and what’s showing up on their social feeds, Hawks said.

Parents should also set guidelines for overall screen use, such as not allowing phones to be used in bedrooms at night, she said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that families create a social media plan.

It’s not just parents who need to be aware of how kids are accessing dangerous content online.

Schools should also think about what websites they allow students to access on their computers and how to make it more difficult for them to come across violent content, said Oren Segal, the Anti-Defamation League’s senior vice president of counter-extremism and intelligence.

Talk with children about what they are seeing online

Parents should regularly check in with their kids to learn what they are being exposed to online, but these conversations are especially important after a traumatic event — such as the Evergreen High shooting — happens, Hawks said.

“It’s really important for parents to go to these kids and initiate these kinds of conversations,” she said.

In these conversations, parents should follow their kids’ lead and let them express whatever feelings they have without minimizing them. Help normalize whatever emotions the child has, whether it’s anger, sadness or fear, Hawks said.

Parents should also avoid trying to problem-solve during the conversation, as it’s important that kids have a space where they can just talk, she said.

Parents should answer any questions their child might have in an open, calm and age-appropriate way. They shouldn’t try to insert their own opinions or political views or use inflammatory language, as that will help perpetuate the divide in society, Hawks said.

Instead, parents should stick to the basics, such as telling a child that violence is never OK, she said.

Parents and educators need to learn language used online

Online teens often use slang, symbols and slogans that adults may not understand to refer to white supremacy, antisemitism and mass shootings.

For example, the Evergreen High shooter liked a comment online that asked if “bro gonna become a Hero.” The term “hero,” specifically the “er” in the word, is an incel term that references a past mass attack.

Incels are misogynists who believe the world is rigged against young men and that’s why they are unable to find romantic or sexual partners, experts say.

The Anti-Defamation League has an online database of hate symbols and codes that parents and educators can use to familiarize themselves with.

Make sure a child has a trusted adult

A trusted adult is one of the most protective factors for a child’s mental health and preventing violence, according to mental health experts.

A trusted adult can be a family member, a coach or a teacher. They are someone a child or teen can talk to and helps them feel like they belong in the community, which means an adolescent is less likely to be drawn into online spaces that encourage them to engage in violence, experts said.

A three-time convicted felon has been arrested and charged in the August killing of a Minneapolis man in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood.

A witness told police that Kireice Plez-Sachet Williams, 24, shot Levon T. Washington, 26, about 4:15 a.m. Aug. 16 after an argument about “which side they were on,” according to a Tuesday criminal complaint charging Williams with second-degree intentional murder.

Williams, of New Brighton, was scheduled to make a first appearance on the charge Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.

Five weeks before the shooting, Williams was released from the Hennepin County jail after posting $100,000 bond in two cases stemming from December non-fatal shootings in Minneapolis. Both cases remain pending in court.

Williams’ criminal history includes convictions in two cases: aiding and abetting first-degree aggravated robbery and threats of violence, both in Ramsey County in 2018. He was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm in Hennepin County in 2021.

According to Tuesday’s complaint, St. Paul police were sent to the 300 block of Edmund Avenue, east of Western Avenue, on a report of a man who’d been shot. Officers found Washington lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to his neck and an exit wound in his back.

Washington didn’t have a pulse. Officers sealed the wounds and performed CPR until medics arrived and transported him to Regions Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

Witness statements

Officers found a spent 9 mm casing near where they found Washington.

A close friend of Washington identified the shooter as Williams, and gave officers a photo of him. She told police she saw Williams fire a single shot at Washington before fleeing.

Kireice Plez-Sachet Williams (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

A second woman also identified the shooter as Williams. She said he came over and did a large amount of cocaine in front of everyone. She said he was talking to someone on the phone before he shot Washington and ran.

A third woman said Washington and the shooter argued about “which side they were on” and Washington told him, “I don’t know you,” the woman told police, according to the complaint. The shooter then said, “I’ll shoot you right now,” pulled out a firearm and shot him.

Investigators found a cellphone number associated with Williams. Location data showed the phone was near his New Brighton apartment about a half-hour before the shooting and then at the area of the shooting.

Location data showed Williams called his wife after the shooting, then went to his brother’s house in Woodbury.

Further investigation and surveillance video showed that Williams and his wife went to the Walmart in New Richmond, Wis., the afternoon of the killing. Williams picked out a Straight Talk Wireless prepaid phone, and his wife paid for it.

“Williams was supposed to meet with his probation officer after the shooting occurred, but he called her with excuses as to why he could not appear at the scheduled time,” the complaint states.

Past trouble

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Williams was charged April 18 with first-degree aggravated robbery and aiding an offender to avoid arrest in connection with a Dec. 5 incident in south Minneapolis. According to the complaint in that case, Williams was “coaching” his juvenile brother through texts on how to rob a man of his car. Williams’ brother allegedly shot the man several times, critically wounding him.

Five days later, Williams was charged with second-degree assault and drive-by shooting for allegedly shooting a 17-year-old boy from the back seat of a black Chevy Tahoe outside a Minneapolis police station in north Minneapolis about 12:40 p.m. on Dec. 29. The boy was shot in the chest and “officers on scene heard shots and witnessed bullets coming through the police department windows,” the complaint says.

Williams was arrested in both cases on June 9 and released from jail on bond the next day.

By TOM MURPHY and MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Drugmaker Pfizer has agreed to lower drug costs and invest $70 billion in U.S. manufacturing under a deal struck with the Trump administration, President Donald Trump said Tuesday.

The announcement, which Trump made with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at the White House, came as the Republican president has for months sought to lower drug costs.

Under the agreement, New York-based Pfizer will charge most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid and guarantee that pricing on newly launched drugs, Trump said. That involves matching the lowest price offered in other developed nations.

“It’s going to have a huge impact on bringing Medicaid costs down like nothing else,” the president said.

“I can’t tell you how big this is,” he added.

It’s unclear how the new policy will affect Medicaid patients who often pay a nominal co-payment of a few dollars to fill their prescriptions, but lower prices could help state budgets that fund the programs. Medicaid is the state and federally funded program for people with low incomes.

Besides committing to lowering costs, Trump said, Pfizer agreed to spend $70 billion in domestic manufacturing facilities. The White House did not immediately release details about the investment.

Pfizer Inc. is one of the largest U.S. drugmakers. It produces the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and the treatment Paxlovid. Its products also include several cancer drugs, the blood thinner Eliquis and the pneumonia vaccine Prevnar.

Trump has been talking for months about the need to lower drug prices. He issued an executive order in May giving drugmakers 30 days to electively lower prices or face new limits on what the government will pay.

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He then sent letters in late July to executives at 17 pharmaceutical companies about changes he would like to see. Copies of the letters posted on social media note that U.S. prices for brand-name drugs can be up to three times higher than averages elsewhere.

The letters called for drugmakers to commit by Monday to offering what Pfizer agreed to: most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid and new medications.

Trump also asked drugmakers to offer the lower pricing levels for drugs sold directly to consumers and businesses.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who joined Trump, Bourla and others at the White House, applauded the president as he touted the deal.

“Americans should not be gouged paying 300 or 400 or 1,000% more than people in other countries for the exact same drug,” he said.

Trump has claimed that the U.S., with its higher drug prices, subsidizes care in other countries.

On Thursday, Trump announced a move that could raise future drug prices: 100% import taxes on branded drugs starting Wednesday. Those tariffs would not apply to companies building U.S. manufacturing plants or to generic medications.

Drugmakers in the past couple of years have started launching websites to connect customers directly with some products like Lilly’s obesity treatment Zepbound or the blood thinner Eliquis from Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. That comes as patients have grown more comfortable with receiving care virtually after the practice exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.

Murphy reported from Indianapolis.